My reactions to this show in four stages: 1. I feel like I've been tricked into watching a Sailor Moon ripoff. (Image Courtesy of: youtube.com)

One of most cliche words of advise is not to "judge a book by its cover". Still, more often than not, all you can trust in taking a chance on something is its appearance. Because of how often the genre heads toward tropes, anime is often fairly judged by how it looks at first glance.

When Puella Magi Madoka Magica was first recommended to me, I thought it was a joke. It screams shoujo, looking like a classic school/magic girl anime. However, PMMM is something complete else, using the tropes of the genre only as an origin for a mature, heavy, and brutal story.

In its twelve episode run, this anime explores desire, romanticism, the lines between good and evil, and the value of life. Just a small set of characters are put their a violent emotional ringer that is deeply mature, feeling better marketed at the exact opposite audience that its appearance might pull in.

Synopsis

Madoka Kaname is a perfectly average girl who is just worried about school, boys, and hanging out with her two good friends, Sayaka Miki and Hitomi Shizuki. However, after a weird dream, a new transfer student Homura Akemi appears at the school, looking just like the girl in her dreams.

She soon meets a strange "cat" named Kyubey who alongside a magical girl Mami Tomoe offers to grant Madoka and Sayaka any one wish they can imagine. The catch is that, in exchange for the wish, they must become magical girls, fighting a constant war against witches to save humanity.

While first they feel wrapped up in the romanticism of battling evil and saving lives, they soon find there is something far more threatening and insidious at work that may not be worth the risk or that single wish.

Story Arc Analysis

***For prospective viewers, this section will contain heavy spoilers. If you wish to not be spoiled on events of the anime, skip to the Impact and Art Style section.***

This anime is far more a long movie than a full fledged anime, playing out in four acts. It is an intensely fast paced ride that is well suited for binging which makes this more an act analysis than an analysis of story arcs.

Humble Beginning (Episodes 1-3): Madoka as a character is not all that interesting, and neither are her friends. In fact, Hitomi disappears into the background quickly. What grabs attention immediately is the intriguing Homura who, from the outset, clearly has a deep history and knowledge to be explored.

The introduction of the magical girls is jarring and effective, quickly overshadowing the early appearance. Mami and Kyubey seem genuinely kind at first, but there's an underlying ambiguity to them that makes them intriguing particularly Kyubey.

The theme of this opening section is desire. Kyubey's promise of a wish is a heavy focus, sometimes as a diversion. Both girls are left salivating over being given one grand wish, and they forget to question the price, an oversight that becomes increasingly apparent in the second act.

Mami ends up mattering most as an example. She's the mentor who must die to allow the students to act on their own. Her death is the first pronounced moment where the show reveals how dark it is going. The threat of death is made real, and, with that, everything grows more complicated and terrifying.

Reality of Romanticism (Episodes 4-6): A witch bites the head right off Mami, and the themes of the anime begin to show most clearly. Madoka and Sayaka realize there is more to the idea of being a magic girl than saving lives. Finally, death becomes reality, and they can see that the world has changed and not strictly for the better.

Multiple times in this part, Kyubey nearly gets one of the girls to make their wish with Sayaka finally breaking, wishing for her musical prodigy school crush to regain his ability to use his hands after an accident. Despite the supposed purity of the wish, there is always the nagging feeling that something will go wrong.

It does though not with the wish itself but with the way Sayaka handles being a magical girl. She romanticizes the notion of being a hero and does not listen to the advise of either Homura or a newcomer to the town, the hot head magical girl Kyoko Sakura.

This leads up to the big moment of the second act, the reveal that the magical girls no longer are alive. Their souls are placed into their soul gems, making their bodies merely vessels from which they can no longer fully feel.

Fault of Goodness (Episodes 7-9): In its third act, PMMM makes its definitive transformation, forgoing all the pretense of a cute happy story. The reveal that Sayaka is physically dead hits her hard, causing her to spiral. Homura and Kyoko try to help her, but they can't convince her to value her own life.

This leads to Sayaka full descent and transformation into a witch. What makes this moment so dark is that it reveals the true lore of the world, hiding under the surface. Kyubey is revealed to be an unfeeling manipulator whose purpose is to make magical girls who can then become witches.

Ultimately, the magical girls are forced to fight Sayaka with Kyoko dying with Sayaka when she's unable to save her. This is particularly grim as the story focuses on Madoka's point of view, feeling powerless to help her friends, just realizing how far the deception has gone.

A Showdown Against Fate (Episodes 10-12): Episode 10 is the masterpiece of the series, revealing the full scope of the anime's story. By showing Homura's reality jumping history, not only does the series finally get to the core of Homura but also unearths the true heart of the anime.

Much of this final section explores the value of human life with Kyubey apparently an alien who has no emotions that cannot understand the idea that a few lives would not be worth sacrificing for the greater good. Homura meanwhile shows how much she values a single life, Madoka, by ripping apart the fabric of fate to save her.

Ultimately, the value of life wins out as Homura's mission allows Madoka to make one last ultimate sacrifice to save all the magical girls of the past and future from the fate of becoming witches through her grandly powered wish. All this time/reality bending is both emotionally effective and makes sense, mostly.

The way the anime shapes up and executes its story is touching and complex. Nothing feels like it is truly left hanging despite so many plot twists and shifts in storytelling. The conclusion is in equal parts satisfying and ambiguous, making clear nothing is ever quite settled.

Rebellion (The Film):PMMM has three feature length films though the first two are purely recap films with some small shifts to the stories. Rebellion though is a sequel to the series. This is a fascinating inclusion to the series that goes full bizarre from the outset. Reveling in a more varied animation style given its setting, the movie is the best looking of any part of the series with the best action.

The movie story though is not as consistently excellent as the main series. There are big plot twists galore along with a far more convoluted and expansive conclusion. It doesn't as much add to the lore as rewrite it again, telling another alternate reality story.

While I enjoyed the experience of watching the film, the ending felt too dark and hollow, negating the optimistic but open ended close of the series. The film also feels like a bit of a character assassination of the series' most interesting character, Homura. The film would work better as the second act of a three part story (the series being the first act) though the movie would still be less consistent than its predecessor.

3. Um, I have no idea what is going on, but it's awesome. (Image Courtesy of: theotakusblog.wordpress.com)

Impact and Art Style

PMMM's tragic flaw is its appearance. It draws in a young female crowd with its presentation but is actually wildly inappropriate for that demographic. The anime is intensely dark and mature, a philosophical genre deconstruction that often gets rather brutal.

This anime uses the mahou shojo (magical girl) subgenre of anime as a foundation to explore the understanding of desire, the blindness that comes with the hero syndrome, questions of sacrifice and order, and the value or detriment that comes with emotion.

PMMM is best understood as another work of writer Gen Urobuchi (Psycho-Pass) whose focus in his writing is often dark and even nihilistic. There is consistent gore and violence though always with an intention. Self-contained and reflective, this is a near masterpiece anime that is well worth the time invested.

The art style deserve special mention in this series as it is truly unique. While the characters are fairly standard hand drawn models, the environments are complex and futuristic, giving the necessary edge of uneasiness with heavy focus on square shapes and plentiful windows.

More importantly, the decision to uniquely animate the witch labyrinths is a brilliant stroke by the artists, using a completely different style that feels wholly opposed to the usual anime style. It is almost always cut-out animation with creepiness a prime factor.

The actual direction of the anime also allows for plentiful experimentation with form and style. Some of the most beautifully animated moments in the series are almost colorless, playing with heavy shadows to reflect a change in mood/tone. The anime often uses film level visual details as clues to progress the series.

Sub vs. Dub

PMMM is a complex and dense show that is written extremely well, but it does not do well translated. The English dub of this anime comes off as noticeably awkward whenever the voice actors have to deal with more than basic dialogue.

It is possible that there is a good dub that could be made for the series, but the one available is not it. Neon Alley's dub just lacks the necessary flair to execute the story properly.

This does not mean the whole English cast are bad nor are the Japanese cast all good. It's just that the English translation feels too awkward to recommend, coming off more naturally when heard in Japanese.

Recommendation: Sub

4. Wait, so that means... and then she... and then. Wow. (Image Courtesy of: cameronmoviesandtv.wordpress.com)

Conclusion

There are few anime that are anything like PMMM. It is nearly perfect in its self-contained story. The psychological/cerebral experience is powerful though there are storytelling flaws along the way. In particular, this series moves at such an alarming rate it does disservice to the characters.

Often the anime wants the reader to just accept character motives and interactions as they develop rather than showing them change. Within each few episodes, the world radically changes, but this small group of characters are the anchor which makes the rapid changes in their relationships feel somewhat unsatisfying.

Still, PMMM is a masterstroke of genre deconstruction that is also just a joy to watch. I sat down and binging the entire series and the movie over two days, only disappointed that it had to end. As someone who grew up on a certain kind of anime, this was a wild change of pace that I greatly appreciated.

I cannot recommend this anime enough as long as the reader is mature enough for the content and knows what they are in for. This is not a happy story. It is a brooding portrayal of how truly dangerous a fantasy world can be, no matter how bright and colorful it seems.